missional church

Our last day in Wellington last week was a workshop with Mike Frost on missional church. Flipping inspiring. He spoke of the need for our "new look for church" to spring from our knowledge about God, and the devestation of mission being seperated from church- they need to be one and the same. I hope to post some of the striking things discussed on my blog over the next wee while.
Meanwhile from his book, "The Shaping of things to come"
"Perhaps the birth of the missional church will depend on whether enough people will be found willing to respond to the critical issues of our time and have a go at dreaming up new forms of church and creating new ways of doing ministry and mission. We believe that the actual experimentation, the revolution if you will, will be actively led and executed by younger people- most revolutions are....
Our heartfelt prayer is that our youth will find the necesary courage to break with the enslaving power of the habitual and the familiar."

You can check out Mike and his crews community on smallboatbigsea.com it is a rad site.

winter woes

Last night I introduced Tim to a great treat- microwaved cheese. It is truly scrumpscious, all melted and chrispy on the edges. Kind of like microwaved mars bars. (Another treat). Tim busted out and added pickle to his plate of goodness. Unsurprisingly crazy dreaming was in store for us.

I dreamt of lolling in the green pastures of my homeland -as my family and friends are at the moment: the sun scorching their skin like berrys, dipping in the fresh sea on the devon coast.

Today I sit at my desk, sheltered from the freezingness of the outside: my skin so pasty it is see through and my mind as unclear as the cloudy skies above. Wah. Winter woes.

lab rats

I'm down in Wellington at the mo for territorial youth meetings. I am a bit sick though...woe me, the snots, the cough, the whole deal, blagh.
Today we are planning Kaivata, the tri-territorial youth conference coming up in January. This week have also been working on our Youth Councils in August, this mad 24 hour bash with Nathan Rowe and Rowan Castle for Oz. Noth you can check out on our youth site- Firezone.co.nz

It's funny cos my motto for ventures i'm involved in/ life in general is "give it a crack". You know, get risky. I like to try new stuff for events. I dig people that do church different.
And then C.S Lewis's words ring in my ear "Jesus said feed my sheep not do experiments on my rats"

kids camp is all over

Wowzas! We made it to the end of Kids Camp! It was without a doubt, the hardest, most stressfull thing I have ever done. But what a flippin amazing time! It finished on Friday and I just spent the whole weekend feeling completely overwhelmed and humbled by the way that God used those few days so powerfully in those kids lives. Up until the first day of camp my attitude was so stink "oh well, if kids camp has to be done then we had better do it well" kind of thing, and felt well out of my depth the whole time- so then to watch God move amongst those kids was just mindblowing! A massive reminder that God is not confined to our effort/attitude/fallibility. A few posts ago I wrote a vague hope for camp that "God would be strong in our weakness"- Man! If I had only known! We saw so potently that Gods power is made perfect in weakness!

Top 3 highlights:
3- The Crazy Opshop Ball- we had tons of 2nd hand clothes, a cheesy covers band and a whole lot of insanity. It was SO rad to watch the kids just let loose big time!
2- Praying with my small group for the Holy Spirit, 8 seven to eight year olds laying hands on each other, wanting to get "plugged in".
1- Hunting for beach treasure with these two young brothers who had just had a bit of fisty cuffs, and seeing how they valued someone spending precious moments with them.

from the Kairos Document

‘The moment of truth has arrived … The Church should challenge, inspire and motivate people.
It has a message of the cross that inspires us to make sacrifices for justice and liberation. It has a message of hope that challenges us to act with hope and confidence. The Church must preach
this message not only in words and sermons and statements but also through its actions, programmes, campaigns and divine services"

Fair Trade Flick

Black Gold is a movie about the injustice of the Coffee industry showing at the NZ Film Festival.
You can check out the movie site here. You should go see it! There are panel speakers after too!

confessions of a bad blogger and kids camp

Oh. I am an unloyal and easily diverted Blogger.It has been an age since I last posted! Life has just really gone mad.
Next week we are putting on a camp at Motutapu Island for a whole bunch of kids, numbers are exceeding 160! We feel pretty out of our depth really. Kids are a whole different ball game to teens. But, I guess we are going: God be Strong cos We are Weak! Which He is ay.
So, thou shalt here from me noteth. But please pray for us! (Kids are a bit scary) (Hehe, but also pray that we will be all moved closer to being like Jesus, knowing and loving Him)

Neil's July 3rd morning devo

My father in law just faxed his devo through to me, it is rad. Here is an excerpt:

"God designed the human soul to be passionate, abandoned and committed. That is the way the soul functions best. It sinks into restlessness, boredom, passivity and function if it has nothing worthy of giving its life to or sacrificing itself for. In other words if we have nothing to die for, then we really have nothing to live for. God intended our souls to be captured, consumed and enthralled with Jesus. Our highest development and greatest fulfilment lie in worshipping and serving him with an abandonment that will sacrifice everything.”

Amine, and may it be so.

yes its true- Tim went to school like this:

Helen Clark and Ecoman

So. I just met the Prime Minister. Yep, true thing. Shook hands and everything. She was here for the Manukau opening- Salvation Army integrated Social Services, which the Social Policy Unit is a part of.
It is the last day of term today and Tim went off to school to dressed as ECOMAN! When the other teachers ask him why he is dressed like that he is gonna say "Uh. Its Superhero Friday...Didn't you guys get the memo?" Hehe. I just spoke to one of the other teachers on the phone who seemed a bit baffled by the whole thing. Rad ay. Craaaazy. Tim is my superhero for sure. Wah. Will post a pic next time.
Last night went to a cool youth thing the young Army is doing on the North Shore- Mobilise. Run by Jakes and the crew. Sang a song with these beautiful words:

"This is what Im glad to do,
its time to give a life of love that pleases you
and I will give my all to you
surrender all I have to follow you....
May the deeds of my day and the truth in my ways speak of you, Jesus"

Amen.

cool happenings in CA

Check out The Freeway site and their blog. My dad just told me about them on the phone- they are an arm of the Army doing an emergent thing. A community coffee house. Wowza, Canada has a few good things going on ay.

Mum and dad have just got back from the Finland Roots conference, where they ate reindeer steak. Yes folks, its true. To register your horror/disappointment with my parents you can email them: we_ate_Rudolf@regenthall.co.uk

Big day wednesday

Had a big day yesterday, in the morning spoke on Fairtrade at a local Christian College which went well- they were keen as. But what was amazing was that it was sent up by this one women who heard about Fairtrade at church and decided to do something about it. What a cool thing! Another lady who heard about it at church went to her employers at a massive NZ chain store, Farmers, and asked them to become a Fairtrade workplace- it has now gone to the Farmer Head Office! Ordinary people doing ordinary things bringing about extraordinary change! Its beautiful!

In the afternoon went to Wellington for a Make Poverty History meeting which was kind of good. But when I went to fly home my ticket had been booked for the 28th of JULY! So I am now in Wellington for a whole extra month. Nah. Just kiddin. I changed it, but what a drama!

Went straight from the airport to Refugee Resettlement class and stopped at the kebab shop to get some tea. Drove to the class with my food and then sat down on the kerb to tuck into it- yumness. As I was enjoying my chips I became progressively aware of a stinky stinky humdinging poo smell and I thought HA! Imagine if I have just sat down in some dog poo! It became less and less funny as I realised that in fact, that was exactly what I had done. So despite giving my trousers a good rub down with soap I was stinky dog poo pants all night.

whats with the dandelion?

I have changed my profile pic for three primary reasons:
1- A dandelion is a good rep. for abandoment as it is utterley surrendered to the wind.
2- It is a weed. But it is beautiful.
3- It's very name evokes questions: Is it a crossbreed like a liger? Or does it stem from the Latin Dandelionia meaning cool big cat?

toe knee noes

From Tony Campolo's Ideas for Social Action:

“Perhaps young people are not attracted so much by a church that tries to entertain them as they are by a church that challenges them to do things for others. If your church provided concrete ways to minister to the needs of others and to effect change in the world they would find your church very attractive. Young people want a church that calls them to be agents of Gods revolution and to be a Part of his movement to bring healing and justice to the world”

Mini merits

Behold, Here is Tim in the midget up on One Tree Hill:
It is well cute our little road runner. A friendly old thing. When we are driving along unfamiliar pedestrians wave at us. And when we pull up at lights the driver in the car next to us will share a smile and a chuckle. Strangers in car parks and petrol stations grasp the opportunity to impart some information about a similar car they once had or to ask how much petrol it consumes (which we wouldn’t know as the petrol gauge fails to gauge) or to extol the speed of these little nippers (which we wouldn’t know either as our speedometer kicked the bucket on the weekend).

And, by golly, this is only the friendly factor, I haven’t even touched on the other virtues. Therefore when people ask: The answer can only and undoubtedly be a resounding “Mini Leyland”

hmmm

I have resorted to the Hmmm title. The default when feeling rather uncreative or when the post is too much of a muddle. (As opposed to feeling spectacuarly thought provoked- that would obviously be in Italics. Hmmmm.)
There are a couple of great reet articles on the rubicon, one by Gordon (whose blog is linked on the right there- urban army) and one by a Grant fellow- kind of about our need to move on from dreaming about the Golden age of early Salvationism. You can see it here. A fab read. The comments are VERY interesting (some are slightly scary too)
It is a showdown between the neo-primitive salvationists (the Opus Dei of the Salvation Army?) and those who aren't (the post-modern/emergent types i think). No, ha, its not quite that dramatic.
But the comments are quite revealing about the increasing prominence of this idea "sin in the camp" that the Salvation Army has become quite overtaken with in months of late. I just hope it doesn't become crippling....

Turtles etc

There is a nice bit in Lee Strobels "Case for Faith" where he quotes Peter Kreeft,

“On my door there’s a cartoon of two turtles. One says, ‘Sometimes I’d like to ask why God allows poverty, famine, and injustice when He could do something about it.’ The other turtle says, ‘I’m afraid God might ask me the same question.’ "

Rad ay.
(Admittedly I dont think this was the picture on the poster, or even that he was refferring to the Ninjas. But they are the only vocal turtles I know and perhaps this is a poignant opportunity to honour and conjur up fond memories of these heroes in a half shell. Turtle Power.)

World Refugee Day

It is world refugee day today. The theme is "Keeping the flame of hope alive"

Do you know that there are 9.3 million refugees in the world at any one time? And that’s the people that make it to the refugee camps. Only three per cent of these ever get resettled somewhere safe. The rest are sent back to the place they fled, or die in the camp.

We (the Fuel team) have started this Refugee Resettlement course, we do an evening class a week and after 7 weeks of this training we get a family (one of the 750 NZ receives under the UN quota) and then have to just befriend and support them; help them get a house, schools, furniture, understand kiwi daily life etc. It is wicked so far, totally excited about meeting our family, but a fair way to go yet.

madness and jubilations

Life has been pretty mad lately. I did a workshop on Mission and Social Action at this excellent event in Tokoroa that the DY from Midland Division put on, but that was a loooong drive down and back on Saturday. Then Tim and I went to Wagamamas (yumness) and we got all spontaneous and extravagant and went to see STOMP at the theatre to celebrate our 6 monthversary of marital bliss WAHOO! Stomp was ammmmaaaaazzzing, even though we were a billion miles away in the sky looking down at dots on the stage (I didn’t have my glasses and Tim had to keep leaning over and saying “It’s a newspaper… it’s a stop sign… it’s a tin” … I remember the days of the old binoculars on the back of the seats for a pound).

We also have my pal from Wellington staying with us at the moment, it is joyous.

Oh well hope all ye are doing fantabulously. Wicked to see my brilliant bro in law, Steve, is charging with his Blog at the mo- although I think my Mum needs to set up a blog so she can put up a post that defends her non-dragonlikeness and so she can describe her fave term for son in laws.

2 hard basket

Last night at Fuel (Mission/Discipleship training) we had the "2 hard basket". Basically everyone bought along their struggles/doubts/faith questions and lay them out warts and all. We covered the war, speaking in tongues and holiness amongst a billion other things and we didn't conclude too much either. It was a beautiful and vulnerable thing!

The night prior to this I had a dream where I was one of the last remaining at the end of the world. "They" (I dont know who "they" were) put a gun to my head and gave me a last confession. I looked around and implored people to "do justice and live right relationships because then you will end up in..." at that point Tim woke me up. But when I get woken up in an important dream I always try and go back and finish it off. So I went back to the end of the world and completed my sentence ".... hell!" Hell?!! Then my seat fell from under me and i went dooowwwnnnnn. It was kind of funny, but of course totally not.
So anyway that was an extreme way of leading to my own struggle which is the fact that i should have, in my last words on earth convinced people about how "Jesus is the Way the Truth and the Life!!!" but I didn't... and how this is a bit of a danger for me sometimes- to forget that my motivation and aspiration must always and only be Jesus, Jesus and Jesus, however that outworks itself.

For anyone wondering: the Mini has undergone a miraculous motortransformation! It is indeed the greatest midget car in all the world. Apparently the problem is just a solenoid, and come on- they are always dodgy in these antique wagons! So no sweat there. It charges along, like a hero and has this wicked PARP for a horn. We are currently in the naming process. We think something like Gangsta H-Core would be appropriate?